E.J. Dionne, Jr.’s Easter Week Homily

I was prepared—for once in a blue moon—to like this column by the Washington Post ‘s resident liberal Catholic scold, but, in the end there were too many jarring notes.

To begin with what I rather liked:

I want to suggest that what should most bother Christians of all political persuasions is that there are right and wrong ways to apply religion to politics, and much that’s happening now involves the wrong ways. Moreover, popular Christianity often seems to denigrate rather than celebrate intellectual life and critical inquiry. This not only ignores Christian giants of philosophy and science but also plays into some of the very worst stereotypes inflicted upon religious believers . . . .

[B]ecause Christians have a realistic and non-utopian view of human nature, they should be especially alive to the ambiguities and ambivalences of politics. The philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain captured this well in reflecting on Augustine’s writings. “If Augustine is a thorn in the side of those who would cure the universe once and for all,” she wrote , “he similarly torments critics who disdain any project of human community, or justice, or possibility.”

I can even assent to this, provided there is sufficient nuance in what we mean by liberation:

Christianity, like the prophetic Judaism with which it is inextricably linked, is rooted in the idea of liberation, and I have long seen the Exodus and Easter as twin narratives involving a release from oppression and the victory of freedom. These promises have left a permanent mark on the culture outside the traditions from which they sprang.

But this passage leaves me wondering if Dionne is capable of such nuance:

So if Easter is about liberation, this liberation must include intellectual freedom. It entails a tempered approach to politics involving a steady quest for human improvement, not false promises of perfection or wild claims about the demonic character of one’s opponents. Elections, even an election as important as this year’s, should not be routinely cast as Armageddon.

Oh, yes, and a compassionless Christianity is no Christianity at all. I have always been moved by this presentation of Jesus from a Catholic Eucharistic prayer: “To the poor he proclaimed the good news of salvation, to prisoners, freedom, and to those in sorrow, joy.” To which one can say: Alleluia.

The reference to intellectual freedom follows a dig at evangelical anti-intellectualism.  But the immediate segue into “a tempered approach to politics” suggests that the principal way in which this anti-intellectualism is displayed  (and is problematical) is in politics.  This strikes me as too narrow (and shall I say partisan?)  an understanding of the problems associated with anti-intellectualism among evangelicals.  It is indeed regrettable that some are suspicious of anything that reeks of reason.  But then there are the rationalists (ideologues, as distinguished from reasonable people) who are working overtime to give reason a bad name among people of faith.  There are also the purportedly “reasonable” people in the academy and the media who don’t recognize how their reductionist approach to race, class, and gender undermines any appeal to reason.

I find it heartening that Dionne doesn’t think it productive to regard elections as the equivalent of Armageddon.  Yes, let’s put politics in its proper place and not overemphasize its importance.  But is the “steady quest for improvement” (another name for progressivism) the only way to conceive the Christian heritage for politics?

I also agree that “a compassionless Christianity is no Christianity at all.”  Surely there are ways other than support for government programs that one can express one’s compassion.  And surely it would be intellectually honest to ask what sorts of compassion work (rather than simply make us feel good), not to mention responsible to our progreny to attend to the debts with which we’re saddlng them.

So I sit silently in the pews of Dionne’s church, not exactly ready to shout “Amen, brother.”